1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of padding and more particularly, to the field of protective padding for sports gear.
2. Discussion of the Background
Designing protective padding for sports gear presents numerous challenges. In addition to having the padding perform its primary function of repeatedly absorbing and dissipating high impact forces, such padding would ideally be lightweight, breathable, and washable. Further, it would preferably be easily integrated into sports gear such as jerseys, pants, and helmets as well as be adaptable for specialized uses such as removable knee and elbow pads. All of the above would be accomplished in a manner that would not unduly inhibit the athlete's movements and dexterity on the field.
Many prior art pads and padding techniques accomplish some but not all of these goals. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,343,047 to Lazowski uses loosely filled, lightweight beads in a breathable casing to form a helmet pad. The helmet pad easily conforms to the contours of the wearer's head and in use, the loose beads are designed to move or shift around relative to each other within the casing. The beads are also designed to be crushed to absorb and attenuate high impact loads and forces. Such crushable padding is essentially effective for only one application and one impact situation, much like a car airbag in an emergency. As a practical matter, such padding cannot be used for other athletic gear such as football pants with thigh and knee pads that must withstand and be effective under repeated blows and impacts without losing their integrity.
Other prior art pads use incompressible beads that are designed not to be crushed (e.g., British Patent No. 1,378,494 to Bolton, U.S. Pat. No. 3,459,179 to Olesen, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,139,920 to Evans). Still others use compressible beads that are also designed not to be crushed such as U.S. Pat. No. 3,552,044 to Wiele and U.S. Pat. No. 5,079,787 to Pollman. However, in each case, the beads are loosely packed to allow the beads to move or roll relative to each other in an effort to achieve maximum conformation to the shape of the particular body part. Wiele in this regard even lubricates his beads to enhance their flowability. The thrust of these underfilled pads as expressed by Olesen, Wiele, and Pollman is to achieve padding with the flow and conforming characteristics of liquid-filled pads, but without the undesirable weight of such heavy fillings. Liquid-filled pads also necessarily require waterproof casings that make them unduly hot in use as they do not breathe. While such pads of loosely filled beads essentially conform like a liquid, the underfilled beads in them have an undesirable tendency to move out of the way in use. This tendency reduces the thickness of the padding around the body part and can even allow the body part to bottom out in the pad. In such a case, the beads essentially move completely out of the way and the only protection left is simply the two layers of the casing for the pad. This is particularly true when used for impact padding where the blows tend to occur repeatedly at the same location. Such loose-filled pads for the most part are ineffective for such uses.
In the athletic field today, the standard padding used is one or more sheets or layers of foam. Foam in this regard has the distinct advantages of being lightweight and relatively inexpensive. For the most part, there are two types of such foam padding. The first is closed cell which has the advantage of not absorbing moisture or other fluids. However, layers of closed-cell foam tend to be stiff and do not conform well to the body, particularly when the athlete is active. They also do not breathe to dissipate body heat and generally cannot be sewn into or washable with the athlete's uniform. The second type of commonly used foam is opened cell. These foams tend to be softer and more pliable than closed cell foams; however, they absorb moisture and odor and generally need to be coated with a waterproof material (e.g., vinyl). This coating then makes the pads non-breathable and very hot.
With these and other concerns in mind, the padding of the present invention was developed and specifically adapted for use in sports gear. The padding of the present invention involves both overfilled pads (i.e., filled more than a simple gravity fill or 100% full) and pads with no more than a gravity fill. Both sets of pads can be used alone or with hard, outer shells; however, most of the overfilled applications do not use a hard, outer shell while most of the gravity filled (and under gravity filled) applications are preferably used in combination with a hard, outer shell. In the preferred embodiments of the overfilled, gravity filled, and under gravity filled padding, the adjacent beads within the pads preferably maintain their relative positioning in use (i.e., they do not flow or migrate relative to each other). The beads in this regard essentially maintain or stay in their positions relative to each other and just vary their degree or amount of compression. This in turn helps to prevent the pads from bottoming out in use. The present padding is lightweight, breathable, and washable. It can also be easily incorporated to protect a variety of body parts, all without unduly inhibiting the athlete's movements and actions. The padding is relatively simple and inexpensive to manufacture and can be easily integrated into nearly all sports gear.